Public Trademark no. 1

Gokje: dit wordt het onderwerp van de volgende column van Bas Kist: Swiss recognise Bin Ladin trademark. Yeslam Binladin, a half-brother of Osama bin Laden, has been given the go-ahead to market products under the brand name Bin Ladin. A Swiss appeals committee on Thursday said it had overturned an earlier decision by the Federal Institute of Intellectual Property to revoke the trademark licence on the grounds that the name was "morally offensive". Explaining its decision, which was taken in June 2004 but has only just been made public, the appeals body said it did not believe that use of the trademark constituted a threat to public order, as claimed by the federal institute.